Published using Google Docs
FAQ
Updated automatically every 5 minutes

#BEStartupManifesto FAQ

What is the goal of the Belgian Startup Manifesto?

The goal of the Startup Manifesto is to change the mindset of the whole country of Belgium towards entrepreneurship. We want to create 10.000 new startups and 100.000 new jobs in Belgium in less than five years.

Starting a company is already hard enough, we should remove all other hurdles that hurt the creation of companies, jobs, and economic growth.

How will we reach our goals ?

We can reach these goals by advocating and driving change in legislation, taxation, education and most importantly in the hearts and minds of everyone who cares about entrepreneurship For the list of proposals check the Belgian Startup Manifesto.

Who can sign the Belgian Startup Manifesto?

Every single person that is either a national of Belgium, that lives or works in Belgium.

Who is this manifesto for?

The Belgian Startup Manifesto is intended for all the people that care about Belgium and that want to improve the country via its startups. If you believe that entrepreneurship should be encouraged and stimulated, then the manifesto is also for you.

How can I help?

  1. Sign the manifesto.
  2. Share your ideas on social media using the hashtag #BEStartupManifesto.
  3. Tell your friends, colleagues and contacts about it and why you think they should sign it. Listen to their ideas. Tell them to participate in the conversation.
  4. Contact your representatives, governments, and other politicians to tell them why you think it matters and asking them to do something about it (be specific, to the point and polite; you can contact them by email, social media, post, call… Don’t be afraid, they are in that position thanks to the votes and the taxes of all the citizens like you). To help you, here’s a non-exhaustive list:
  1. Federal Government and Federal Parliament.
  2. Regional governments:
  1. Brussels
  2. Flanders
  3. Wallonia
  1. Belgian parliaments (contact the parliamentarians that participate in economic, entrepreneurship, tax, and education issues) :
  1. Brussels
  2. Flanders
  3. Wallonia
  1. Your city hall.
  1. Pay it forward and offer your experience, knowledge and help to those that want to start (if you have it, if not, offer your moral support when asked ;) ).  
  2. Translate the manifesto to your language and share it with us.

How did this whole manifesto come to be?

It all started with a simple tweet. Then Xavier picked up the torch and so did Karen, Bart, Robin and many others. As soon as Xavier started working on it he sent out a call for ideas together with Karen using the hashtag #BeStartupManifesto and more than 100 ideas where shared in social media, via email, talks… After this, a group of committed entrepreneurs got together to curate all these ideas, synthesizing, ordering, prioritizing… The first version of the manifesto was presented on March 12 2015 at the Tech Startup Day, just one month after the initial tweet that started it all.

Why in English? How about French, Dutch and German?

This has been a really fast paced work. The first version has been drafted in English as it is the common language of the curators. Versions in other languages will come as the community submits them.

How did you come up with 10,000 new startups and 100,000 new jobs?

That wasn’t hard: we picked 800, then we multiplied it by 3.5, then we added 533 and we multiplied it all by 3.

That’s how we got to 10,000. Then we figured that each startup would have eventually on average 10 people.

Who can I contact about the Belgian Startup Manifesto ?

This is a distributed effort with many members of the community involved at different levels. Expect this link to change. We have included the preferred languages of each person by their name, with a link to their profile and their Twitter account. These are the people that are available for questions, suggestions and comment:

Special thanks

This Manifesto could not have been without the help of a lot of people that contributed their ideas and support through the #BEStartupManifesto (we call this the waffletag). Among them we would like to highlight: